This time it’s personal!

How technology has allowed us to say it with personalised aprons (and oven gloves)

Growing up in the 1980s I can remember the excitement of finding special ‘named’ products, such as key rings, bookmarks and mugs in a gift shop. I would then scan, sort and rummage through the shelves or display, looking for mine or my sister’s name (Sally & Lucy). Sometimes we would get lucky and be included in the specially chosen ‘register’, but often not.

I realise now that retailers and manufacturers needed to play it safe. The laws of supply and demand meant that stocking up on Sarahs, Emmas, Jacks and Williams was the safest bet to keep the cash registers going ker-ching – as they still did in the 1980s!

However, if your name was unusual or even just had an unusual spelling you were pretty much destined to be disappointed. Given the rich multiculturalism that has developed since and the diversification of names, there would be an even greater number of kids without personalised stuff.

Something had to change…

Let’s time travel now to the early 2000s. In July 2000 the greetings card company Moonpig.com was launched. Internet based, Moonpig offered customers a choice from a large selection of basic card designs and which could be personalised with the addition of their own text. They also developed a range of spoof magazine covers and invitations, which could be customised by uploading photographs. The concept proved to be popular and by 2007 the company was responsible for 90% of the UK online greeting card market, with nearly a whopping six million cards shipped. (Source Wikipedia).

So far, so techno-tastic. However the greetings card market is ‘print’ based. The personalised printing, while innovative and having a great novelty impact, was still being used in flat paper or card based printed materials.

Enter sublimation printing, which utilises digital imaging technology to print high resolution photographic images directly onto a whole range of other materials and products.

The world becomes your personalisable oyster.
At Cookify we realised that many of our orders were for customers not buying cooking products for themselves, but as gifts. We employed sublimation printing, amongst other techniques, to allow our customers to personalise and customise a range of cooking products including aprons, chef hats, kids cooking sets and oven gloves and gauntlets.
It is now possible to create a truly unique one-off cooking gift.

Quality is of paramount importance, so we use either our own poly-cotton aprons and hats manufactured here in the UK or carefully sourced durable protective oven gloves. These can then be customised by adding text to one our exclusive pre-designed templates, created by our own young up and coming designers. Or if you prefer you can upload your own photograph, image or design.

We have found that the designs where the name and date can be personalised are very popular for birthdays and special occasions. The beauty of adding your own text means that you can add a truly personal message or even a private joke. As these cooking gifts are practical too; they will be in daily use. To paraphrase, a personalised cooking gift is like the greetings card that keeps on giving!

But as we are passionate about teaching kids to cook and appreciate food, there’s another benefit of personalised aprons and cookware that we would like to share with you.

Children really love to cook and bake using their own special cooking utensils and wearing their own aprons and hats. And if this has their name on – well it just makes the experience that extra bit special, fun and memorable too.

Can you imagine how you would feel as a child in the 1980s if something could be printed and personalised just for you?

With this in mind, we have developed our own kids baking sets with a personalised bag a perfect cooking starter set for any budding junior chef. The bag is great for kitchen storage, but our customers have reported that they have also found it useful for recorders and PE kits too! Why not, we say.


So please come and browse the Cookify Personalised Gifts category. There’s a Star Baker apron there, just waiting to have your name on it.